He immigrated to the United States to seek greater economic opportunities but stayed here illegally before he was given a path to citizenship. He received government assistance. He started a business, hired American workers, paid taxes, and bought a home.
These facts are not uncommon parts of an immigrant’s journey. Most come here for better opportunities. Forty percent of undocumented immigrants came here legally but overstayed their visas. Most immigrants receive some government assistance. They are also twice as likely to start a business than a person born here. These businesses hire workers and pay taxes. Immigrants buy houses and are less likely to default on their mortgages.
It is worth noting that the immigrant from the story above is a vocal critic of not only illegal immigration but also federal spending to support them. He is also one of the richest men in the world and is currently wreaking havoc within our federal government by cutting spending for the poorest people not only in our country but around the world.
He appears to suffer from something I’ll call, Attribution Sanctimony Syndrome. This refers to the very real and common tendency to attribute our own journey towards success as morally superior or more deserving than others who have traveled similar paths. It’s a mouthful, so we can use the acronym, A.S.S.
All joking aside, this is a very serious and dangerous phenomenon where we lose touch with the factors that were truly instrumental in our success while at the same time denying them to others. In this case, it means a man whose own business was saved by government loans and has been awarded over $21 billion dollars in federal grants and contracts is taking issue with families receiving a few hundred dollars to help feed their family.
The stories we tell ourselves about why we have been successful while others have struggled to do the same are complicated and contradictory. We like to believe in a just world, which means we must justify these inequalities by presuming that everyone deserves whatever they get.
In reality, what may be happening is an economic mobility version of the Rubin’s Vase. This is a famous illusionary image where some will see a vase while others will see two faces. A gestalt switch is necessary for someone to realize that the image contains two truths. It is both a vase and two faces.
When it comes to economic mobility, it means that we must see that some people work hard, benefit from help and become successful while others similarly work hard, benefit from help and still struggle. The world is sometimes just and sometimes not. When we see both truths, it should spur us to provide people with the same opportunities we had to achieve success.
We fear acknowledging these truths because it makes our own success more complicated and even tenuous. Yet in doing so we compound the situation, continuing to reap more benefits while denying and disparaging others. While psychologically this may be understandable, it doesn’t make us any less of an A.S.S.
Recommendation of the Week: I’ve recently been watching the show Severance, which looks at the duality of power – not between two people – but within ourselves. Trippy and provocative.